La dérive nostalgique dans la nouvelle « Les naufragés » de Jean-Christophe Rufin
The Nostalgic Drift in the Short Story “Les naufragés” by Jean-Christophe Rufin

Summary/Abstract: In his short-story entitled “Les naufragés” or “The Shipwrecked” (Sept histoires qui reviennent de loin, Paris, Gallimard, 2011), Jean-Christophe Rufin analyses the social and cultural fissures in Mauritius through his text which goes beyond the class conflicts in order to take into consideration a historical dimension which gives to the text its own characteristic. The nostalgic drift that we shall address in this paper, and which adds to the idea of a wreck results in a sad ending for the narrator (a white woman) while in a happy one for the “silent” protagonists of the text (the Hindus of the inlet where the narrator and her husband live). However, this short-story remains relevant because it offers a new look on the end of white hegemony on the island of Mauritius which has experienced the horrors of colonisation. In the first of the three parts of this paper, we shall look into the nostalgia for a glorious past, where the character-narrator remains deeply nostalgic of such a past. The second part of our analysis will focus on highlighting temporal differences; the white narrator, will demonstrate how time – an important factor to analyse in the process of decolonisation – can create a nostalgic drift. The last part of the analysis of this short story will be marked by the nostalgic quest for the past in contrast to the inevitable present. This fatality is then sadly linked to the suicide of the character who can no longer accept the profound changes taking place within Mauritian society.

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